For India's poorest, an ID card can be the difference between life and death

By Mayank Bhardwaj
RAMGARH, India, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Prem Malhar says his
50-year-old father died of hunger a few months ago because he
did not have the Indian government's Aadhaar identity card that
would have given him access to subsidised food.
At least 14 people have died of starvation in Jharkhand, the
eastern Indian state where the Malhars live, activists say. They
say the deaths have occurred since authorities cancelled old
handwritten government ration cards last year and replaced them
with the biometric Aadhaar card to weed out bogus beneficiaries.
Taramani Sahu, an activist with the Right to Food Campaign,
blamed the Jharkhand government for delays in issuing the
Aadhaar cards after one million old cards were cancelled. For
some who depended on the rations for subsistence, the results
were fatal, she said.
In July, three sisters under the age of 10 died of hunger in
New Delhi, the capital, sparking accusations of government
apathy. The deaths were not linked to possession of the Aadhaar
card, but there has been widespread outrage that people are
dying of hunger in a country where, according to government and
industry data, grains and produce worth 580 billion rupees ($8
billion), or 40 percent of total output, go to waste every year.
Opposition parties have seized on the issue ahead of three
big state elections this year and the national election in 2019,
whittling into support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Modi's office did not respond to requests for comment on the
starvation deaths.
Nishikant Dubey, a BJP lawmaker and a member of a
parliamentary panel on the Aadhaar policy, said linking the card
to welfare programmes was the best way to check siphoning off
funds meant for the poor.
On the deaths, he said: "The opposition is being
irresponsible by blowing it out of proportion for political
mileage."
Malhar, who lives in a hut made of twigs, leaves and mud in
a hamlet near the town of Ramgarh, says he and his brother now
have the Aadhaar cards, but are still not eligible for
subsidised food because of what he called "bureaucratic
ineptness".
"My father died because he couldn't get his Aadhaar card
during his lifetime and I'm not getting food because my Aadhaar
card is not linked with the ration shop," said the 25-year-old,
dressed in a red vest and tattered trousers.
Reuters spoke to three ration shop owners in the area who
said they could not give subsidised food to those who did not
have Aadhaar cards or failed the biometric identification
process. They said the Malhars' cards were not linked to the
system because that had to be done by another government
department.
In the state capital, Ranchi, Jharkhand's food minister
Saryu Rai said he had ordered local officials to distribute
subsidised food to the poor even if they didn't possess the
Aadhaar card. But activists say those orders have not been
transmitted to the shop level.
Rai told Reuters it was not clear that the deaths in
Jharkhand had occurred because of starvation. Officials have
previously said people had died because of illness, not lack of
food.
"There must be a system to know what constitutes starvation
deaths and I welcome food activists to work with us on this,"
Rai said.
DIGITISE ECONOMY
Officials in other states say they have eased rules that
insist on Aadhaar. Still, activists claim that the decree has
deprived some families of subsidised food in Rajasthan, a state
that is also ruled by the BJP.
Aadhaar is part of an ambitious effort to digitise India's
economy, and almost all transactions with the government are
dependent on the card, including banking, food subsidies and tax
and other payments.
Among other things, the government says the use of Aadhaar
will plug theft and leakages in the $23.63 billion a year food
welfare programme that guarantees ultra-cheap rice and wheat to
nearly two-thirds of India's 1.3 billion people.
Nearly a third of the food meant for the poor gets stolen
every year, with middlemen, traders and government employees
colluding to sell the produce in the open market, economists
estimate. The government says nearly 30 million fake and
duplicate cards have been weeded out, saving about $2.35
billion.
But in a vast nation where many of the people are unschooled
and dirt poor, the Aadhaar system is far from foolproof.
Some of the poor have not enrolled in the programme, or
their fingerprints do not match those on the database, the
largest in the world. Others suffer because the identification
system requires functioning electricity, an internet connection
and operational servers, not always assured in interior India.
Ajay Bhushan Pandey, chief executive of the Unique
Identification Authority Of India that runs the Aadhaar
programme, has said that connectivity and power problems do crop
up, but added authorities have been told not to withhold social
benefits if people can provide other, acceptable identification.
"People are dying because of government callousness," said
Hemant Soren, the leader of the opposition and a former chief
minister of Jharkhand. "Mark my words, voters will teach them a
lesson in the next election."
In the hamlet near Ramgarh, Malhar and other men took
shelter under a tree as a light drizzle came down, seeping
through the makeshift roofs of their huts. They were joined by
some women who said they were struggling to light damp firewood
inside their huts.
Malhar lives with his 22-year-old brother Videshi in the hut
with four other family members - their sole possessions are a
few utensils and clothes that look like rags. They subsist on
the brothers earning between 70 cents to $2.70 per day, picking
through trash or working nearby rice paddies.
"We've lost our faith in the government which is responsible
for my father's death," said Prem Malhar. "The most unfortunate
part is that authorities still continue to be callous and their
callousness is starving poor families like ours."
($1 = 71.94 rupees)
(Additional reporting by Manoj Kumar; editing by Sanjeev
Miglani and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
First Published: 2018-09-12 07:10:42
Updated 2018-09-12 07:24:05

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